Question

In the following sentence, four words or phrases have been underlined. Choose the word or phrase which is not appropriate in standard written English. If the sentence has no error, mark (5).

It is usually the junior managers who (1) find it difficult to confirm (2) to the prevailing (3) pattern of thinking (4) and doing things. NO ERROR (5)

Answer 1

Hint: Grammatical errors come in many forms and can easily confuse and can create unclear meaning. Some common errors are with prepositions and most importantly, subject verb agreement, tenses, punctuation, spelling and other parts of speech.

Complete answer
Let’s look at the sentence by breaking it into the four given parts so as to find out if there is any error in the statement.
1) It is generally the junior managers who- this part of the sentence is correct having no error. ‘Who’ is correctly used here where it is referring to the junior manager. Who is used to refer to the subject of the sentence, here it’s the manager. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.
2) Find it difficult to confirm- this part of the sentence has an error. Instead of ‘to confirm’ the phrase should be ‘to conform’. Confirm means to ‘establish a truth or correctness of something’ and here this is not making any sense whereas conform means ‘comply with rules and laws.’ So, the junior managers are the ones who are finding it difficult to abide by the rules and laws. Thus, this is the correct answer.
3) To the prevailing- this word has been correctly used. Prevailing here is referring to the laws and rules which already existed. So, the junior managers are finding it difficult to conform to the already established rules. This part is error free and this is an incorrect answer.
4) Pattern of thinking – this phrase has no error. It is referring to the already set style of thinking to which the junior managers are finding it difficult to follow. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.
It is usually the junior managers who find it difficult to conform to the prevailing pattern of thinking and doing things.
The error lies in number 2, to confirm.

Note:So, in this question conform should be used instead of confirm in sentence 2. Conform means abiding rules and regulations and confirm means giving confirmation to something. However, to make the sentence correct we have to replace the word ‘confirm’ to ‘conform’. However, these small errors in sentences makes the meaning of the sentence unclear. To make it clear it is very important to have correct usage of words.